“From the Webbs to the Web: the Contribution of the Internet to Reviving Union Fortunes”

This paper shows that in the 2000s unions in the UK and US made
innovative use of the Internet to deliver union services and
move toward open source unions better suited for the modern
world than traditional union structures. In contrast to analysts
who see unions as being on an inexorable path of decline, I
argue that these innovations are changing unions from institutions
of the Webbs to institutions of the Web, which will improve
their effectiveness and revive their role as the key worker
organization in capitalism.

Professor Freeman co-chairs the Harvard Trade Union Program
and directs the Labor Studies program at NBER. One of the most
prolific and influential labor economists in the United States,
Freeman’s many books include What Do Unions Do?
(1984) and Visible Hands: Labor Institutions in the New
Economy, forthcoming 2004.

Monday, October 11, 2004

“The Origins of Affirmative Action at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton”

Professor Jerome Karabel, Sociology Department, UCB
(co-sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Social Change)

The presentation will describe how Harvard, Yale, and Princeton
were transformed from de facto segregated institutions in 1960
(less than one percent black) to fully integrated institutions
by the late 1960s. It will also discuss the various forces,
both on and off campus, that produced this historic change.
Finally, the presentation will link this discussion to a broader
analysis of how the 1960s enduringly changed admissions policies
at the nation's elite universities.

Professor Karabel is the author of The Chosen: Admission
and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton From 1900 to Today,
forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin in Fall 2005. He is a former
chair of the UCB admissions committee; the Karabel Report was
influential in changing UC admissions to broaden the socio-economic
background of our students.

Monday, November 8, 2004

“The Hidden Public Costs of Low-Wage Jobs in California”

This study examines the extent to which publicly-funded safety
net programs are becoming an ongoing wage supplement for low-wage
workers, rather than emergency assistance for those who find
themselves unable to work. The data set combines administrative
data on enrollments and costs of the ten largest statewide programs
with detailed demographic and employment characteristics of
program participants in the Current Population Survey. Of $21.2
billion of public assistance provided to low-income Calfiornia
families in 2002, 48 percent-- or $10.1 billion-- went to families
in which at least one member worked at least forty-five weeks
per year. A simulated increase in the state minimum wage to
$8 would reduce taxpayer costs by $2.7 billion.

Using multiple establishment-level data sets that represent
establishments that faced organizing drives in the U.S. during
1984-1999, this paper uses a regression discontinuity design
to estimate the impact of unionization on business survival,
employment, output, productivity, and wages. Essentially, outcomes
for employers where unions barely won the election (e.g. by
one vote) are compared to those where the unions barely lost.
The analysis finds small impacts on all outcomes that we examine;
estimates for wages are close to zero. The evidence suggests
that at least in recent decades the legal mandate that requires
the employer to bargain with a certified union has had little
economic impact on employers, because unions have been somewhat
unsuccessful at securing significant wage gains.

This paper is scheduled to appear in the Quarterly Journal
of Economics. Professor Lee is also the author of “Inequality
in the United States during the 1980s: Rising Dispersion or
Falling Minimum Wage?” Quarterly Journal of Economics,
1999.

Monday, December 6, 2004

"Upgrading California’s Homecare Workforce: The Impact of Political Action and Unionization"

Howes will present the results of the first stage of a two-year
project that examines the impact of wage and benefit differentials
on the recruitment and retention of homecare workers. This paper,
which is forthcoming in The State of California Labor,
2004, tells the story of the political process by which some
homecare jobs have been upgraded in California. Using descriptive
statistics and logit regression analysis, it also shows that
turnover is lower in those counties where wages and benefits
are higher, after controlling for other factors that affect
turnover.

Candace Howes is the Hogate-Ferrin Associate Professor of Economics
at Connecticut College and a Visiting Scholar at the IRLE, where
she is conducting a study of homecare workers in collaboration
with the UC Berkeley Labor Center and SEIU Locals 250 and 434B.
Howes is the author of “Living Wages and Retention of
Homecare Workers in San Francisco,” forthcoming in Industrial
Relations, January 2005, Special Issue: the Impacts of
Living Wage Policies.